benchmark of ecommerce solutions (short version, english)
DESCRIPTION
This study covers 12 e-commerce solutions in-depth : Websphere commerce, Oracle Commerce, Hybris, Intershop, Magento, Prestashop, RBS Change, Oxid eShop, Drupal Commerce, Zen Cart, Open Cart, Virtuemart. Full version is available here: http://www.nbs-system.co.uk/blog/benchmark-of-e-commerce-solutions.htmlTRANSCRIPT
Benchmark of e-Commerce solutions
by Philippe Humeau et Matthieu Jung
S y s t e m
2013 edition
“Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not so.” Galileo Galilei
2
S y s t e m
NBS System
NBS System was born in 1999 and is now providing services to 3000+ websites, hosting them, securing them and answering their needs on a daily basis. Based in France and in United Kingdom, our teams are made of black belt admins and security experts, able to tackle the biggest chal-lenges. As e-commerce provided us with a tremendous growth over the last 5 years, we published that book to give a bit back to the community.
Consulting
The authors provide services if you want to get more details. We can provide training, webinars, private consulting to help you choose your solution and conferences.
Just take contact with us to study the possibilities for your business : [email protected]
E-Commerce Hosting
NBS System offers high quality ma-naged hosting services, with a par-ticular highlight on performances, security and high availability. As you will discover in this book, we are not only here to “reboot the server” but we very knowledgeable about the solutions themselves.
Our support team provides ad-vanced cares & services to make your site successful : [email protected]
http://is.gd/e_commerce
Link to the full study
NBS System Offers
About NBS System
3
Introduction page 4
1 - WebSphere Commerce page 9
2 - ATG Oracle page 12
3 - InterShop page 15
4 - Hybris page 18
5 - Magento page 21
6 - VirtueMart page 24
7 - RBS Change page 27
8 - Drupal Commerce page 30
9 - Oxid eShop page 33
10 - Prestashop page 36
11 - Opencart page 39
12 - Zencart page 42
Conclusion page 45
Contents
4
Foreword about this book
This book aims to provide a reliable and impartial source of information to e-Merchants. The goal of this book is to help decision makers, technical and business one, to find the proper e-Commerce solutions for their needs.
Content stripped but available in the full version (180 pages) here : http://is.gd/e_commerce
Introduction
A quick look back
Market segmentation
The graphic ahead must be looked at, it gives key basis to understand the book.
5
E-Commerce brought a tremendous growth to our managed hosting activity over the last years. We now have the opportunity to give back a bit of what E-commerce brought us to the community and we are very glad to share this success, sincerely.
But, to trust that our opinion is independent, we think you may want to know all our motivations for spending more than 6 months of work on such a book, given for free, where our line of work is absolutely not the edition business.
The answer is simple: we are a managed hosting company, dedicated and spe-cialized in E-commerce and we are willing to show that we are not only around to reboot servers or restore a backup for our customers. (We also still have a very small hope that someone will feel like sponsoring us with beers)
We have been assisted by the editors to test & review their solutions, we were able to interview them all, both on a technical and a strategic side. Still, apart from the direct quotes that you can identify by the double quotes enclosing them and in italic format along with their author, the writings, findings, analysis and points of views are the author’s one and none others. We are not sponsored, influenced or working for a team more than another.
• Methodology stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)
The benchmark of E-commerce solution v2
• Pages stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce) : Trends & stakes of 2013, analysis per Tier, Java or PHP ?
Introduction
Our philosophy & goals
6
The benchmark of E-commerce solution v2
• Pages stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce) : Trends & stakes of 2013, analysis per Tier, Java or PHP ?
Introduction
7
(*) Budget includes licenses (when needed) and developments/integration.(**) Budget includes License/maintenance fees, site evolutions, hosting.
The arrow length & positioning have been carefully thought but this is an average. Some customers may do 20 M$ with OpenCart and some 1 M€ with Hybris, but this is not the “usual” case.
Introduction
“Comfort zone” per solution
8
This graphic represent the “weight” of each solutions per segment. We here divided the market in 6 tiers instead or our usual 4 to give a better precision. The dot size represents the strength of the solution in a given segment. The bigger, the better.
When two dots are of same size, this means the market shares figures are very comparable (i.e., ATG and Websphere commerce both are leading in number of very big sites, with 49 sites vs. 45 detected in the Top 10 000 sites of the web). When a dot is smaller from a magnitude, it means the number of sites are significantly less in number than for the one having a bigger one.
Introduction
Measured territorial occupation per solution
9
Belongs to IBMNumber of employees (worldwide) 434 000Revenues in 2011 $104 billionsVersion (at the time of study) WSC V7 (Feature Pack 6)Licence Proprietary & subscriptionFirst release 1996Origin United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 100-200 k€ / 500 K€ / > 500 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
After nearly 3 billion dollars invested in several acquisitions (Sterling commerce, DMODigital Analytics and Tealeaf) the consolidation cycle in WCS took two years. With references like Staples (15 Md$ made online), Canon, Ikea, Sony and many other alike, IBM could look like a Tier 1 “only” player. In reality, the strategy of the corporation is also to dig deeper in the Tier 2 & 3 markets.
WCS has a convenient Flash based back office that makes the administration very convenient, al-lowing for example drag & drops and giving a user friendly interface to the shop manager. The back office is responsive, clearly organized and functio-nal.
The IBM applicative stack gives very good native performances. The drawback of not being stan-dard (and close source) is here compensated by a full control over all the components, giving IBM a
very accurate vision of the technical needs for a specific project.
WebSphere Commerce
Express analysis
Tier 3Tier 4 Tier 2 Tier 1Not targeted Marginal Co-leader Leader
“WCS features are usually demonstrated in an “Aurora” example store, which is very complete, some other market specific stores are available: B2C, B2B, Mobile, language or country located, etc.”
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution: 12 pages.
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The mobile development is based on Worklight which provides HTML5, Hybrid & Native capabilities, including private app server and a REST API. IBM speaks about the “Omnishopper” concept and the cross channel strategy starts here, at the confluence of the mobile capabilities and the OMS product.
As many players, IBM adopted the “kickstart” approach, with a SaaS model and adaptable demostores, allowing customers to build web shops quickly and without the complexity of a full “from scratch” project.
As Oracle and Intershop, IBM will have to review its plan due to the acquisition of Hybris by SAP. IBM offer is extremely complete but they are now three big firms to be able to provide an extensive catalog of software and services to large customers. Globally, WCS is very good on most KPI, but everything comes at a price.
WebSphere Commerce
“The “Precision Marketing Tool” is a fantastic tool and WCS is the only solution providing such an advanced tool combined with an interface that intuitive.”
Avril 2012 11
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Websphere synthetic report
General information WCSTurnover to consider the solution > $ 5M ($2M in SaaS)Current market settlement Tier 1 -‐ 2Editor direction Tier 1 -‐ 3Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,R,B2B,POpensource No, JavaEditor emphasis Marketing toolsEditor emphasis Cross CommerceEditor emphasis PersonnalizationWe are impressed by Marketing tools & cacheWe are sceptical about Proprietary stack, costsMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 300 K€ / 150 K€
General KPI WCSCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) /Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) Marketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI WCSDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI WCSAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
WebSphere Commerce
Avril 2012 12
Belongs to OracleNumber of employees (worldwide) ~115 000Revenues in 2012 $37.1 BillionVersion (at the time of study) 10.2Licence Proprietary & subscriptionFirst release 1998 (ATG belong to Oracle since January
2011)Origin United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 100-200 K€ / 500 K€ / >500 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
ATG, a company that survived to the dot-come bubble burst, was acquired by Oracle for $1 billion in 2010. It is now part of a full environment and competes in the Tier 1 sector with the other Java based frameworks such as Intershop, Hybris & Webs-phere Commerce. ATG’s focuses are Customer ex-perience, Customer behavior and providing tools to be competi-tive. The vision of the company is that managing a retail business is made of three main activities: buy, merchandise, sell. The next step is just ahead: Price & Promote since having the best prices (not always the lowest) are a key to better sales & margins.
Acquiring Endeca was a chess master move from Oracle and after two years of work, Endeca is now totally fusion with ATG, in a nice, borderless, integration since ATG bet a lot on the personalization of the website to the incoming customer.
Express analysis
“As IBM, Oracle acquired other lea-ding and high potential companies, in order to strengthen its offer, namely RightNow, Fatwire, Retek and the famous Endeca. ”
atg Oracle
Tier 3Tier 4 Tier 2 Tier 1Not targeted Not targeted Co-leader Very strong
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 12 pages.
Avril 2012 13
Another axis where Oracles work and pro-vides solutions is the “silo” organization. Oracle assures that these silos, these boun-daries, only exist on an internal organiza-tional level but totally misfit the customer behavior.
The back office Console organization is not really revolutionary in terms of tech-nology but the concepts are very interesting as the fact that the console is always contextual and pleasant to use. The visual page editor is totally WYSIWYG, the va-rious blocs composing a page are moveable using drag & drop and the contents are editable directly in the context. The global suite is very complete and feature packed, clearly competing with IBM’s WCS.
The editors focus its efforts on the companies making at very least a couple of tenth millions online, and only if they target an exponential growth. On the other hand, if you are already above those figures, ATG is a solution you simply cannot ignore in a call for proposal. Even if one of the most expansive e-commerce software package, it is undoubtedly one of the most complete as well.
“Sephora and Louis Vuitton even manage in-store sales using the website on a tablet in their physical shops.”
atg Oracle
Avril 2012 14
ATG Oracle synthetic report
atg Oracle
General information ATGTurnover to consider the solution > $ 10 / 20 millionCurrent market settlement Tier 1Editor direction Tier 1Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,R,B2BOpensource No, JavaEditor emphasis PersonnalizationEditor emphasis MerchandisingEditor emphasis Experience in Tier 1We are impressed by Navigation & backofficeWe are sceptical about Project timings, costsMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 500 K€ / 250 K€
General KPI ATGCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) /Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) Marketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI ATGDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI ATGAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 15
Belongs to IntershopNumber of employees (worldwide) 530Revenues in 2011 €50MVersion (at the time of study) Intershop 7.3 & Enfinity Suite 6.4Licence Proprietary First release 1992Origin GermanyBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) €100k / €500k – €800k / > €800kMore KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Intershop targets companies that are in the Tier-1 and Tier-2 only, their main compe-titors being Oracle ATG, IBM Websphere and Hybris.
Intershop is a solution that provides an amazing scalability with its 3-tier architec-ture, capable of handling millions of pro-ducts and processing tens of thousands of orders per day, designed for major e-Commerce projects, having an internatio-nal and multi-site strategy.
Intershop has a seriously different philosophy in terms of development compared to most other solutions. The Eclipse-based development environment is the place where developers translate all their logical process and workflows in code through a graphical user inter-face.
Express analysis
“With 20 years of experience, Intershop is a multi-national company with offices all around the world representing a serious force in the e-Commerce landscape. ”
InterShop
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Not targeted Outsider Strong Outsider
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 12 pages.
“The Multi-Touchpoint Application is the cornerstone of Intershop’s multi-channel strategy, allowing to monitor and to interact on every channel, in a centralized way.”
Avril 2012 16
InterShop
The B2B model is the historical activity of the solution thus Intershop provides an amazing list of features for this activity, actually the most complete set of all solutions we analyzed so far.
Intershop is a mature and complete solution that provides features for high technical and international projects in Tier-2 and definitely a natural leader in B2B area.
Now Intershop is facing a new chal-lenge, keeping its place in the landscape
when IBM and Oracle are back to business and Hybris is pushed forward by its new godfather, SAP. On top, Intershop is more and more perceived as sleepy while its potential is impressive. Is Intershop now a potential target for eBay to buy?
“HP, one of the biggest clients of Intershop, has to manage 17 languages and more than 40 currencies through a complex and unique B2B model built with Intershop.”
Avril 2012 17
Intershop synthetic report
InterShop
General information IntershopTurnover to consider the solution > $ 5 millionCurrent market settlement Tier 1 -‐ 2Editor direction Tier 1 -‐ 2Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,D,R,B2B,PvOpensource No, JavaEditor emphasis ExperienceEditor emphasis ScalabilityEditor emphasis B2BWe are impressed by The code generatorWe are sceptical about Lack of market awarenessMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 400 K€
General KPI IntershopCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI IntershopDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI IntershopAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 18
Oracle ATG, Websphere Commerce and Intershop, were leading the Tier-1 & Tier-2 and competition was almost organized until a Swiss team gently blown up this quiet landscape. Nowadays, whatever criteria you examine Hybris under; you will probably find it very successful, as their investors that recently injected $ 30 million.
In June 2013, Hybris was acquired SAP, similar culture, language and mindset (Hybris is a Suisse based solution) made Hybris and SAP naturally compatible. SAP will reinforce Hybris positions by providing key entry points to the major accounts and providing a cornerstone: their ERP system.
Different strategy, different philosophy, experi-mented managers, serious product, Hybris caught
the major player rather unprepared and accelerated very quickly. Initially known for its Product Content Management (PCM), the team quickly integrated an Order Manage-ment System (OMS) and a multi-channel strategy, becoming a very complete actor.
Hybris
A major actor is back
Belongs to SAPNumber of employees (worldwide) approx. 58 000 people (estimated)Revenues in 2011 ~ $21 billionVersion (at the time of study) 5.0Licence ProprietaryFirst release June 2002 (belongs to SAP since june 2013)Origin SwissBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) €100-200k / €500k / > €500kMore KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Express analysis
“The company founded in 1997 in Munich has experienced growth for years, until it caught the e-Commerce wave and started to soar a couple of years ago.”
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Not targeted Trying Leader Breaching
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 12 pages.
Avril 2012 19
Hybris
The global vision of Hybris is now all about Multi channel. The firm wants to provide answers to all the needs of an eMerchant from the online sale to the in-store physical delivery or pick up, up to the printed catalogs. To cover all those channels, one need a centralized data system, called Master Data Management (MDM) in Hybris.
Another great strength of Hybris is its ability to provide applications either on-de-mand, on-premise or in a hybrid way. This flexibility in the license billing enables the clients to try specific features of the solution and then to move to a more integrated solution later on.
In Hybris language, an accelerator is a demons-tration store, already fully functional, with a dedi-cated purpose like B2B or telecom. An eMer-chant can choose to go with those pre-setup stores, enabling shorter timings before the go live.
About the progression margins, Hybris needs to grow its ecosystem, to acquire some native per-sonalization tool like FredHopper or Fact finder
to enhance its functional coverage and rival with IBM and Oracle. Allowing import of XML format could be a nice enhancement, along with dropping the outdated Jalo library that manage the session of the visitors (among other things) and is not sup-ported anymore.
Hybris is clearly strong, when not leader, on some KPI and needs to progress on features such as merchandising and advanced marke-ting.
“There are several “acce-lerators” available in B2B and B2C depending on your market focus: elec-tronic store in B2B, retail store in B2C, department store, telecom, luxury, non-material seller, etc.”
“Hybris is a very balanced solution, able to adapt quickly to changes and already mature enough to cover most needs. ”
Avril 2012 20
Hybris synthetic report
General information HybrisTurnover to consider the solution > $ 5 millionCurrent market settlement Tier 2Editor direction Tier 1 -‐ 3Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,D,R,B2BOpensource No, JavaEditor emphasis PIMEditor emphasis Cross canalEditor emphasis AcceleratorsWe are impressed by The momentumWe are sceptical about Jalo lib & XML importMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 250 K€ / 100 K€
General KPI HybrisCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) /Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) Marketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI HybrisDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI HybrisAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
Hybris
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 21
Belongs to eBay Inc.Number of employees (worldwide) 400 (estimated)Revenues in 2011 50 M$ (estimated)Version (at the time of study) Community: 1.8, Enterprise: 1.13Licence Opensource, OSL v3First release 2008Origin United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 15 / 40 / 150 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Magento’s success is one of the most impressive ever in the field of e-Commerce, ever. Magento is the leader in terms of market shares (without merchant size consi-derations). In the Tier 3 & 4 market, it is dominating the place and even found growth in the Tier 2, only Tier 1 still eludes the Californians.
Magento “1” conquered the heart of near-ly 150 000 e-Merchants and a couple of thousands decided to buy an Enterprise license from the editor but Magento 2 is still very expected for several reasons including the deep refactoring of a some components.
Magento acted a bit as a sleeping beauty (technically speaking) over the last year. The reorganization of the Ukraine team and production sites by eBay also took its toll of skilled people and the Magento 2 focus almost all attention.
Express analysis
“Back in 2007, Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner created the first bases of Magento, when the market was desperately looking for an alternative to the dying osCommerce.”
Magento
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Key actor Leader Breaching Trying
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 12 pages.
Avril 2012 22
Magento
The Enterprise version made progress and is now one of the most stable products around meanwhile the CE version made no real progresses and its users felt a bit “lonely”. The CE is quite “stalled”, but we had the chance to test an early version of Magento EE 1.13 and the performances have improved sharply.
Magento has a very large community, tied together by a dynamic editor and com-mon interests. This is one of the main successes of Magento: bringing an ecosystem together, that is fruitful, and beneficial to everyone.
The version 2 will bring substantial changes to the Core, to the feature list and the global efficiency with Restful webservices, support for other data-bases (like MS SQL, Oracle, NoSQL, etc.), a better documentation and more CMS capabilities. (Among other points)
Extensible, flexible, widely adopted and widely supported, the solution can cover a very wide range of needs, if not directly with its gigantic feature list, by one of its numerous extensions. Magento is still a complicated product to code and not eve-ryone is able to handle it properly.
Not much is to be expected in terms of new features before Q1 2014 but the 1.13 version of the EE is bringing a big performance increase and more stability, to an already version clean product.
Still, some of the big firms, namely WCS and Hybris have views on the Tier 2 market. Change will soon release its very impressive and expected version 4 while Drupal Commerce expects to play a serious role in the Tier 3 market. Even if in a dominant position and backed by a giant, Magento is still reachable by its competitor, at least in their home Tier 3 segment.
“Magento was far more advanced than the competitors, even with the recent technical pause and eBay was able to stay on its position for a while, but now the emerging players are lurking.”
Avril 2012 23
Magento synthetic report
Magento
General information MagentoTurnover to consider the solution > $ 500 K Current market settlement Tier 2 -‐ 3 -‐ 4Editor direction Tier 2Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,S,R,POpensource CE Yes / EE NoEditor emphasis VersatilityEditor emphasis CommunityEditor emphasis CostsWe are impressed by EcosystemWe are sceptical about Cross CommerceMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 25 K€
General KPI MagentoCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI Magento (CE/EE)Development technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) /Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) /Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) /Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI MagentoAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 24
Belongs to VirtuemartNumber of employees (worldwide) 5Revenues in 2012 N/CVersion (at the time of study) 2.0.20bLicence GPLFirst release 1997Origin GermanyBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 5 K€ / 5-10 K€ / 15 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
VirtueMart is an open-source free PHP e-Commerce framework based on Joomla!, one of the most famous CMS in the world.
VirtueMart is the second most repre-sented e-Commerce solution on the web, used in production by a large number of e-Merchants even if the live stores seem to be smaller e-Commerce projects. Still, we found that Virtuemart lost a bit more than 8% of its installed base in 8 months, a weak performance if you consider that e-commerce was globally growing of more than 10% over the same period.
VirtueMart provides the basic features of an e-Commerce solution: reviews, ratings, one page checkout, coupon handling, VAT management and all others features that need an e-Merchant to run a store in an efficient way, with large CMS capabilities provided by one of the best CMS: Joomla!.
Express analysis
“After the fork of Mambo, phpS-hop changed its name as Vir-tueMart, officially supporting the newly created CMS: Joomla.”
VirtueMart
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Visible Declining Not targeted Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 12 pages.
Avril 2012 25
“Drupal has nothing to envy to Joomla regarding CMS capabilities, its e-Commerce extension is modern and efficient, on the rise and financed. The challenge is tough.”
VirtueMart
One concern with Joomla is the security and it is said that find vulnerability in Joomla or one of its extensions is fairly easy, which can lead to critical issues for unwary e-commerce sites owner.
The competition made by the Drupal & Drupal commerce duet to the Virtuemart / Joomla’s one is obviously a hard one. Not the most complete in class, not the worst either, VirtueMart targets pure players that want their store to be setup quickly, with an almost free customization thanks to the extension mar-ket and the many templates available.
Avril 2012 26
VirtueMart synthetis report
VirtueMart
General information VirtuemartTurnover to consider the solution From 0+ Current market settlement Tier 4Editor direction Tier 3 -‐ 4Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,POpensource YesEditor emphasis CMSEditor emphasis SimplicityEditor emphasis CommunityWe are impressed by Templating systemWe are sceptical about Evolution paceMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 10 K€
General KPI VirtuemartCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) n/aTime to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI VirtuemartDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI VirtuemartAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 27
Belongs to RBSNumber of employees (worldwide) ~160 (RBS + Change)Revenues in 2012 Unknown (but under 10 M€ for Change
Licenses)Version (at the time of study) 3.6Licence Opensource – Affero GPL v3First release 1997Origin FranceBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) €15k / €20-45k / €80kMore KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Actually one of the most surprising actors of the market, Change is now a contender to be considered in the Tier 3 arena, with projects having a budget ranging from 50 to 100 K€.
Change is a platform storing contents, embedding a very smart and powerful workflow system and providing amazing performances. The solution position itself
as an e-commerce CMS with a very strong accent on B2B and cross channel. Some complementary side features are included, like a Forum, a blog, a photo gallery and a very convenient form builder.
Express analysis
“The solution, originally a CMS, evolved over nearly 10 years and started to include some e-Commerce features and became quickly a global platform, totally open sourced since 2010.”
RBS Change
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Not targeted Trying Leader Breaching
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 9 pages.
Avril 2012 28
RBS Change
The global conception of Change is very ele-gant, light and flexible. The product offers spe-cific strengths like a very complete and well-structured workflow system or exceptional performances in terms of scalability and page load time.
Change needs to acquire its autonomy from RBS in order to have its own life, strategy, alliances and to raise funds. 2013 will be a transition year for Change, with this main step to achieve along with the release of its promising version 4.
The integration of AngularJS, Twitter bootstrap, Elastic Search, Twig, SQLite, the tidying of the code, the support of RESTful webservices and the integration of Zend Framework 2 will make the 4th version of the solution a must have or at least a “must look at”.
“The CMS of Change is the pivotal point of the solution, once you understood its features and organization, all is become very simple.”
Avril 2012 29
RBS Change synthetic report
General information ChangeTurnover to consider the solution > $ 1 millionCurrent market settlement Tier 3Editor direction Tier 2 -‐ 3Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,D,R,P,PvOpensource YesEditor emphasis Cross CommerceEditor emphasis CMSEditor emphasis WorkflowsWe are impressed by ArchitectureWe are sceptical about Autonomy from RBSMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 50 K€
General KPI ChangeCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI ChangeDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI ChangeAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
RBS Change
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 30
Belongs to Commerce GuysNumber of employees (worldwide) 55Revenues in 2011 NCVersion (at the time of study) Drupal Commerce 1.5Licence GPLFirst release 2011Origin France/United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 20K€ / 30-70K€ / several millions€ (accor-
ding to editor)More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
It brings product & catalog manage-ment, tax system, checkout process, order management, etc. to Drupal.
Even if the official figures announced by the editor seem exaggerated, the suc-cess of Drupal Commerce grows and
Commerce Guys (editor of D-C) raised 5 million dollars. Counting now 55 employees and technically led by a Drupal figure (Ryan Szrama), D-C brought a very fresh and well-engineered e-commerce solution to the Drupal world.
Relying totally on Drupal brings pros and a cons. Pros since it profits from the criti-cally acclaimed CMS capabilities and architecture of Drupal and has access to some of the 16,000 modules. Cons because D-C have few autonomy regarding its road-map and of the deep technical choices, which are led by Drupal.
Express analysis
“Drupal Commerce (D-C) is an opensource e-Commerce solution based on the very famous CMS Drupal, first released in 2011.”
Drupal Commerce
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Outsider Outsider Trying Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 9 pages.
Avril 2012 31
The feature list of Drupal Commerce is not yet rivaling with long timer like Magento or Prestashop but the version 2, coming soon to support Drupal 8, will bring (among others): Restful Webservices, lighter pricing update system, faster checkout, better mobile support.
D-C also evolves more and more toward a SaaS philosophy, with an already existing environment where developers can make tests, manage several teams, create workflows. The next step to create and host client sites is probably a matter of months. D-C business model is based on consulting trai-nings & support.
“Not really good at interfacing physical Point of Sales or in B2B, Drupal commerce instead excels if you need dynamic mana-gement of your brand image online or if you are a pure player.”
Drupal Commerce
Avril 2012 32
Drupal Commerce synthetic report
General information Drupal ComTurnover to consider the solution > $ 500 KCurrent market settlement Tier 3Editor direction Tier 2Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,POpensource YesEditor emphasis CMSEditor emphasis CommunityEditor emphasis ModularityWe are impressed by CMSWe are sceptical about The figures announcedMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 20 K€
General KPI Drupal ComCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) n/aTime to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) Marketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI Drupal ComDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI Drupal ComAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
Drupal Commerce
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 33
Belongs to OxidNumber of employees (worldwide) 60 employeesRevenues in 2012 UnknownVersion (at the time of study) 4.7Licence GPL V3First release 2003 (outsourced since 2008)Origin GermanyBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 3 K€ / 10-50 K€ / 100 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Oxid is very renown in Germany, where it fights toe to toe with Magento regar-ding market shares, but it lacks definitely some international visibility and strategy.
Oxid sits in the Tier 3 market with its freemium offers but aims to reach larger customers and the Editor has already some meaningful and prestigious cus-
tomers like Carrera, Intersport, Zeiss, or the spare part shop of Mercedes Benz.
The Oxid community is very strong and composed of partners, clients, contributors and the editor. Its yearly get together event (Oxid Commons) and forum show how vivid and healthy is the ecosystem in Germany.
Express analysis
“With solid references such as Neckermann (German Galeries Lafayette) or Medimops, making thousands of daily transaction online, OXID eShop is a mature, solid, production grade solution.”
Oxid eShop
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Very strong Breaching Not targeted Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 7 pages.
Avril 2012 34
We can find the “German touch” of quality & control in Oxid’s codebase, as an example, unit tests are covering now more than 93% of Oxid’s code! The solution also offers a very clean and simple upgrade system. Oxid allows for very fast inte-grations and has no problem handling meaningful volumes (visitors, transactions & SKU).
Coming in three flavors (Community, Professional and Enterprise editions), the editor provides different level of licenses, features and services. The Oxid eFire service, available only in Germany yet, is a very inno-vative and interesting approach to interface external SaaS services easily.
Providing some fair Cross Channel capabili-ties, good B2C coverage, rock solid stability and a clean codebase, Oxid is not yet really ready for B2B and lacks some international vision (even if the solution was fully transla-ted to English and French).
“The solution is a bit weak regarding Webservices but the team work on upgrading this point, the default search engine can be replaced by Solr, Fact Finder or Celebros.”
Oxid eShop
Avril 2012 35
Oxid eShop synthetic report
Oxid eShop
General information Oxid eShopTurnover to consider the solution > $ 500 KCurrent market settlement Tier 3 -‐ 4Editor direction Tier 2 -‐ 3Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,P,ROpensource YesEditor emphasis PerformanceEditor emphasis ScalabilityEditor emphasis Easy upgradeWe are impressed by Upgrade systemWe are sceptical about Ambition of the solutionMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 50 K€
General KPI Oxid eShopCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) Time to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI Oxid eShopDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI Oxid eShopAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 36
Belongs to PrestaShop SANumber of employees (worldwide) 70 employeesRevenues in 2012 6.1 M€Version (at the time of study) 1.5.4Licence OSL v3.0 & AFL v3.0First release Feb 20th, 2008Origin FranceBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 0 / 10 K€ / 35 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
PrestaShop is a French, PHP and Open Source, e-Commerce solution, widely spread in the world of e-Commerce with a verified 135 000 active eShops. It had to face a very bad storm in 2012 and many people thought the solution was dying. Lots of people were fired and the 1.5 first
releases were unpolished and buggy while the incomes were still shaky and the business model clumsy.
Rough decisions saved the company from a darker future and even if the stress test was harder than for most competitors, PrestaShop stood its ground and is back to business. With two third of its revenues coming from the Prestabox marketplace, the solution has now a business model that seems to be back to profitability.
Express analysis
“Prestashop is the easiest solu-tion to develop among the one reviewed in this book and this fact alone can already explain its wide adoption worldwide.”
PrestaShop
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Very strong Breaching Not targeted Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 6 pages.
Avril 2012 37
The 1.5 version was corrected and is now made to target bigger accounts, bringing almost all the features that start with «multi» (shop, view, currency, taxes, etc.). It also embeds a very efficient Mobile application.
With 8.6% of market shares and 130.000 active eShops in the world, the SaaS model would be the logical next step for this solution and we might see a fierce com-petition arise in Tier 4 if Prestashop choose to do so.
Very efficient and well thought Templates are available, along with a lot of modules and the integrators is often left with a light work load, consisting in a simple integra-tion.
The web service is one of the most ad-vanced in the market, the mobile applica-tion is very up to date and the B2C feature list is impressive. The BackOffice is in basic HTML (no Xul or Flash) but it is clear.
PrestaShop
“For larger pure players willing to dodge the complexity of some other actors, PrestaShop can also be a real alternative (but it is not designed to cover the physical store needs).”
Avril 2012 38
PrestaShop synthetic report
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
PrestaShop
General information PrestashopTurnover to consider the solution From 0+Current market settlement Tier 4Editor direction Tier 3Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,POpensource YesEditor emphasis SimplicityEditor emphasis CostEditor emphasis CommunityWe are impressed by Time to marketWe are sceptical about Soaring someday ?Min budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 10 K€
General KPI PrestashopCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) n/aTime to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI PrestashopDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI PrestashopAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
Avril 2012 39
Opencart was created in 2009 and the solution shows already serious results. Wappalyzer ranks OpenCart in fourth position and Tom Robertshaw’s study in sixth position among e-commerce fra-meworks.
Its community is still “small” but already very inter-national and active. As an example, it is possible to find extensions to translate a website in no less than 17 different languages! OpenCart gained in-
tegration partners in 26 countries, including eleven in United-States and seven in United-Kingdom.
OpenCart is a developer friendly solution, the inheritance system, XML configuration and the global use of design patterns makes it comfortable to develop with. The solution also offers a wide range of documentation (how to install, set-up, manage the eShop, etc.) on its website, making it easy for newcomers to try OpenCart.
Belongs to OpenCartNumber of employees (worldwide) N/CRevenues in 2012 N/CVersion (at the time of study) 1.5.5.1Licence GPLv3First release 2009Origin United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 5 K€ / 10 K€ / >10 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
Express analysis
“The adoption rate of Opencart shows an impressive growth of nearly 40% in just six months, this solution is clearly acquiring momentum.”
OpenCart
Tier 4 Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1Breaching Strong Not targeted Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 5 pages.
Avril 2012 40
The solution covers the basic needs of eMerchants with features such as multi-store, coupons, gift vouchers, multiple tax rates and so on. If a feature is not yet available, you may have a chance to find it in OpenCart’s huge extension directory (8,000 extensions). One can really build a very complete site by stacking them, even if reviewing extensions, comparing them, check if they meet the security standards to finally install and test them can also be a long and technical process.
Even if Opencart’s strategy is not really rea-dable yet, it can become a future star and some may want to consider an investment opportunity, since other frameworks like Magento started their massive success with very comparable ingredients.
“The solution is globally technical and developer oriented and may not be accessible to e-Merchants without serious integrator or a strong internal developer team.”
OpenCart
Avril 2012 41
OpenCart synthetic report
OpenCart
General information OpencartTurnover to consider the solution From 0+Current market settlement Tier 4 Editor direction Tier 3 -‐ 4 Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) B,POpensource YesEditor emphasis ExtensionsEditor emphasis CommunityEditor emphasis CostWe are impressed by Number of extensionsWe are sceptical about For good developpersMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 10 K€
General KPI OpencartCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) n/aTime to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI OpencartDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI OpencartAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
Avril 2012 42
Belongs to Zen Ventures, LLC Number of employees (worldwide) NCRevenues in 2012 NCVersion (at the time of study) v.1.5.1Licence GPLv3First release 2003Origin United StatesBudget to create a website (low/middle/high) 5 K€ / 10 K€ / >10 K€More KPI & indicators in the full version http://is.gd/e_commerce
The solution seems to have lost a very meaningful amount of its market shares in just one year and a large part of its user base is already migrating. Nevertheless, the figures are still impressive with more than 6 million downloads claimed to date and 100 000+ users registered in their forum.
Few major releases of Zen Cart have been released over ten years and the demo store looks outdated. The design and the user experience are old fashioned and some basic features, now available in almost all concurrent frameworks, are missing in the core product.
Express analysis
Zen Cart
Tier 3Tier 4 Tier 2 Tier 1Strong Not targeted Not targeted Not targeted
• Content stripped but available in the full version (http://is.gd/e_commerce)Full review of pros & cons along with strategy and evolution : 4 pages.
“Zen Cart’s code is originally based on Oscommerce and is by far its most popular fork. The solution is still very widespread, with developers and aficionados all around the world. ”
Avril 2012 43
With product options system, gift certificates, multi lingual, multi currencies, multi tax rate and a decent promotion engine, the solution could have “naturally” evolved toward excellence but the demostore is outdated and the administration modules were far too complicated. There is still a possibility to find plugins that will cover some of the needs, with the very helpful community of zenners.
The team takes its time and prefers doing small updates in order to improve the solu-tion, step by step the team is working hard to release the v2 of the solution.
Zen Cart is an old solution that seems to be outdated when we compare it to competitors. It could have compete with these newcomers by raising funds and hire a complete developer’s team in or-der to provide regular updates but it did not and the solution seems now to be in a difficult position.
Zen Cart
“In version 1.6 the demostore will be totally overhauled with HTML 5 & CSS3 support, along with res-ponsive design for mobiles and jQuery, but is it not too late?”
Avril 2012 44
Zen Cart synthetic report
Zen Cart
General information Zen cartTurnover to consider the solution From 0+Current market settlement Tier 4Editor direction Tier 4Profile (B:Brand, R:Retailer, P:Pure player, D:Department store, Pv:Private sales, B2B) POpensource YesEditor emphasis CommunityEditor emphasis FeaturesEditor emphasis CostWe are impressed by not muchWe are sceptical about their futurMin budget to create site (developping from scratch / customizing an example shop) 5 K€
General KPI Zen cartCost of the solution (license, integration, hosting) Flexibility of licensing costs (peak, pay as you grow, on demand, on premise …) n/aTime to market (developping from scratch / customizing an existing example store) Variety/Quality of demo shops to adapt to a specific use (apart from std demostore) n/aMarketing capabilities (promotion engine, coupon, gift card, etc.) Level of navigation & catalog presentation (faceted/multi-‐stores/multilingual/etc.) Eco-‐system (community, partners, integrators, forums, etc.) Backoffice friendliness & ease of use
Technical KPI Zen cartDevelopment technical complexity (more stars => less complicated) Number of third party softwares / extensions / services available Number of complementary product / services from the Editor Speed of the Front Office (customer web page rendering) Front Office scalability (capacity & cost to serve more customers with less servers) Speed of the Back Office & scalability (number of simultaneous users) Native CMS capabilities Native Webservice capabilities (Interfacing with third systems, e.g. ERP or Logistic) B2C Feature list (default, without add-‐ons or side programs) Mobile (Native App, Hybrid App, Responsive design)
Advanced features KPI Zen cartAdvanced searchandising & user personnalization capabilities Multi / cross / Omni channel capabilities Advanced catalog management (PIM, multi catalog, attributes, bundles, etc.) Integrated or natively interfaced OMS (order management system) Advanced marketing tools (adaptive marketing, dynamic navigation tunnels, etc.) Native B2B capabilities
(The more stars, the best. One star is the minimal rating. On every KPI at least one solution scores 5 stars, hence this is a comparison between solutions.)
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Conclusion
Content stripped but available in the full version (180 pages) here : http://is.gd/e_commerce
In a world where almost all businesses have now a strong competition, the solution editors have emphasized different strategies to equip their customers for the battles to come. Yes, the global e-Commerce market is indeed growing worldwide, still this is no Eldorado where one should head unprepared.
The competition is tough and the margins are often small. To make things even more difficult, the advertisement systems, the retargeters, marketplaces and other web-marketing providers are also trying to eat on these skinny profits.
The e-commerce world as divided in two groups nowadays: those who are Amazon and those who are not. It is forecasted by some serious analysts that Amazon may weigh up to 20% of global e-Commerce by 2017…
Renowned brands and retailers have their natural place online and have a consumer group recognizing and valuing their products or services. Those players have no real competition from giants like Amazon (eventually from another brand rather).
But all the others have no “natural” space online and who will have to fight their way online. Even very large sites and classical mortar business have sometimes hard time to compete with Amazon so, most likely, if you are not a brand, you do not want to step in this game.
The solutions we studied will bring you various assets and strengths to cope with your own objectives :
• In Tier 1, IBM and Oracle now have to adapt their strategy to the rise of Hybris, backed by SAP. Intershop starts to be more and more isolated (except in B2B world), even in Tier 2, and the company could be acquired soon by players like eBay to bring them back to the top level competition. SAP could go on buying technologies like Celebros, Fred Hopper or Fact Finder to reinforce its e-Commerce offer.
• In Tier 2, some players like Magento are trying to ascend, meanwhile Hybris and Websphere commerce are searching to grow their potential customer pool by invading this segment.
• In Tier 3, the battle is already raging between excellent PHP products like Magento, Change, Drupal Commerce and, in some way, Prestashop or Oxid if you are based in Germany.
Conclusion
46
Conclusion
• The Tier 4 is more and more dominated by SaaS offers and Prestashop also have all the qualities to own this market, while Open Cart is also taking momen-tum and could bring some surprises. Virtumart is losing ground, but not as fast as Zen Cart which seems to suffer from a clear slowdown.
Thanks you for reading us, for taking time to listen to our opinions and reading our reviews, you, reader, are the persons we care about while we write. We are available to help you cast your choice if you want some more details since only roughly 50% of the collected data could be published, for readability reasons.
Philippe Humeau & Matthieu Jung, NBS System.
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Brands, copyrights & trademarksNBS, NBS system, No blue screen, Cerberhost, IBM, Websphere Commerce, Websphere, Oracle, ATG, Intershop, Hybris, SAP, Magento, Ebay, Apple, Iphone, Ipad, Android, iOS, Virtuemart, Joomla, Drupal, Drupal Commerce, RBS, RBS Change, Oxid eShop, Oxid eSales, Prestashop, Opencart, Zen Cart, Os commerce, Demandware, Levis, Diesel, Amazon, Zend, PHP, Linux, Java, Zappos, Tag Heuer, Pixmania, Price minister, Newegg, Galerie Lafayette, Macys, Vente privée, Brandalley, Rue la la, Nike, H&M, DB2, DMODigital, Tealeaf, Staples, Canon, Ikea, Sony, Goodyear, Zara, Sterling, iCon-go, SOLR, Apache, Celebros, Fredhopper, Aliznet, Technology Everywhere, Salmon, Micropole, CGI, Sogeti, Infosys, HCL, Pixelixir, Ecocea, MIT, Peoplesoft, Retek, Footlocker, Wal-MArt, Sephora, Louis Vuitton, eBusiness Suite, Siebel, Flex, Exadata, Exalogic, Fatwire, Prusdys, Fact Finder, T-mobile, HP, Sun Microsystem, Smart, Tom Tom, Enfinity,Merck, Deutsche Telekom, GSI Commerce, MySQL, Metro, Cosco, Samsung, MongoDB, Talend, PayPal, OroCRM, Akeneo, Magento Go, X.Commerce, MS SQL, NO SQL, GIT, GITHUB, PHPtal, smarty, AS400, Cegid, Navision, Colombus, AngularJS, Google, Twitter, Twitter bootstrap, SQLite, Twig, Ikea, MTV, DrupalCon, Alven Capital, ISAI, Skrill, be2bill, Kiala, Jirafe, RoyalMail, Kenzo, McDonalds, Cartier, The Doors, Oxid Commons, Varien, Nec-kermann, Medimops, Shoptimax, Polytouch, Mobilemojo, Oxid eFire, Ellapaul, PrestaBox, Forrester And their respective logos are trademark and/or copyrights belonging to their res-pective owner. If your brand or trademark is quoted in this book and you wish it to be removed, you can contact the authors to notify them.
Copyrights
This book textual contents (citations excepted) and intellectual property belongs to NBS System and his authors. No reproduction or quote is allowed without explicit consent from the authors or from NBS System. An exception is made for education facilities (not training one), like colleges, universities or equivalent as long as the sources are named. This book cannot be offer to download in another place than NBS System’s website. The graphics created by the authors (not the one provided by the editors) are free to be used as long as they are associated with NBS System’s logo and name. NBS System is and remain the exclusive owner of this content. 2013, all rights reser-ved to NBS System.
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About the authors This study was conducted over several months by Philippe Humeau, assisted by Matthieu Jung.
Philippe Humeau, CEO and co-founder of NBS System in 1999.After graduating Engineer in Computer science at EPITA 1999, Philippe became a security expert (pentester) and he is now in charge of developing NBS System’s activity as CEO. He deve-loped an expertise in E-Commerce as of 2006 with a main focus on technical aspects of solutions, especially on the optimization of websites performances. Matthieu Jung, Communication & Marketing manager.Matthieu loves the Web industry and is always looking for brea-king news in order to be up to date with the e-Commerce best practices. He is in charge of the marketing and communication at NBS System and assist Philippe Humeau for the organisation of events. Matthieu also contributes to the blog Ecommerce-squad.com.
Greetings The authors would like to thank all the experts and e-commerce solutions publishers who agreed to share information with us. A special thank is also issued to our ama-zing translator Bénédicte Mutel ([email protected]) who helped us more than once to translate our contents and to Amélie Hardy ([email protected]) who made this graphic template and PDF. Vilya Ean, Julien Didier, Jean Claude Nogues (DataSolution), Tim Robertshaw (MeanBee),
Mentions légalesEditor : NBS System, 140 bd Haussmann, 75008 Paris, FrancePrinting company : Com’Tools, Espace performance bât C1-C2, 35769 Saint Grégoire Cedex, FranceDate of release : 14 of June 2013Contact : +33.1.58.56.60.80, [email protected]
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S y s t e m
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